Boot: President Obama may be coming under withering criticism from his own former secretaries of defense for his hesitant and uncertain conduct vis-à-vis Syria. But he has at least a few defenders left who argue—as David Ignatius does today in the Washington Post—that he is simply giving the public what it wants By 2007 there was virtually no support among the public for the surge. Yet President Bush ordered it anyway, and it worked. As evidence came in of declining rates of violence in Iraq, support for the surge increased. In retrospect Bush had made the gutsiest and best call of his presidency by taking a tough stance in defiance of public opinion. And as events on the ground shifted, so did public opinion. That’s what we expect commanders-in-chief to do. And it’s not just Bush or Republican presidents who make these tough calls. So do Democrats, ranging from Harry Truman with his support of NATO and the Marshall Plan (neither of which was initially popular) to Bill Clinton, with his support of unpopular interventions in Bosnia and Kosovo. Even Obama has defied public opinion to intervene in Libya. There was no more enthusiasm among voters for that conflict than there is now for the one in Syria.
Posted on: Fri, 20 Sep 2013 13:06:32 +0000
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